Sound the sequel alarm! In its quest to ‘Try Everything’, The House of Mouse is about to take viewers not exactly ‘Into The Unknown’, but er, into the known. Yesterday saw Disney’s quarterly earnings call (who doesn’t love one of those?) which brought with it the unveiling of a scattering of sequels to animated favourites: Frozen, Toy Story, and Zootropolis (or Zootopia, whichever title applies on this side of the pond) are all getting follow-ups in the near future.
Discussed by CEO Bob Iger as an example of how the Walt Disney Company is “leaning into [its] unrivaled brands”, the news could be interpreted as a direct response to the relative disappointments of last year’s meta Toy Story spin-off Lightyear and the largely-overlooked Strange World. With since Zootropolis, Frozen II, and Toy Story 4 all broke the billion-dollar barrier at the box office, sequels to all three are safe bets to become fan favourites and see bums on cinema seats once more – plus, Frozen 3 will make history for the studio, creating the first official trilogy in the Walt Disney Animation Studios catalogue. The news also represented something of a silver lining in an otherwise difficult call for Iger, which saw the Disney boss announce the lay-offs of 7,000 employees and a loss of 2.4 million Disney+ subscribers in 2023’s first quarter.
At this stage, there are no details available on release dates, creative teams, or even confirmation of the titles for any of the sequels announced on the call. But in the meantime, before Disney take us all back down sequel street, we still have original Pixar effort Elemental and Walt Disney Animation’s 100th anniversary celebration feature Wish to look forward to. We’re sure the others will be here in true Zootropolis-sloth style: quick as a flaaaaassssshhhhhhh.